Human Resources
Human Resources
Introduction
The police field is an important element in the society. The police have distinct duties including maintaining order in the society and promoting security for the people. As such, the police field is an area of close interaction with various types of people. Many regions and governments in the world have well-established police departments to deal with the issues of security in those given regions. Therefore, in order for these police departments to be successful, they realize that there is a need for the establishment of human resource departments within those police departments. Human resources are essential aspects of any organization especially in these police departments because they form the human assets in relation to the organizational functions. The New York Police Department is one of the police departments with human resources.
NYPD Human Resources
The New York Police Department has a well established Human Resource Section that is committed to the efforts of advisement and support to the members of service that are assigned to the Training Bureau. These members include both the civilians and the uniformed members and school safety recruits. The Human Resource Section staff handles numerous queries on a daily basis. The objectives, practices and functions of the Human Resource Section, establish a culture that emphasizes on the goal attainment, personal empowerment, quality standards and high performance both in the Training Bureau and the daily operations ("Human Resources," n.d.).
In the training Bureau, the Human Resource Section established and implemented a law enforcement on women basing on the concerns of the female recruits. The police personnel are readily available starting from 0600 hours to 2400 to assist with financial, family, health, time management, academic, and discipline concerns ("Human Resources," n.d.). The Human Resource Section serves as a distinct liaison to the NYPD’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity. All the contacts are confidential except when the issues of criminal misconduct or homicidal and suicidal ideation are revealed.
Moreover, if referred by a supervisor or the instructor, the information that has to be shared with the predetermined referral sources needs to go through a given discussion before disclosure. The referrals are made by the instructors, the team leaders, the squad commanders or through self-referral. The employees are referred to different external sources to get services that the Human Resource Section does not provide. The Human Resources Section maintains a continual open-door policy committed to the responsibility of conflict resolution and the guidance in a considerable mentoring atmosphere.
The significance of having a well established Human Resource Section is that it facilitates the execution of functions and promotes effective use of the human resources in place. This section of human resources in the NYPD provides it with an opportunity to monitor the services and functions of all the individuals in the training bureau and the police academy. The police department uses this Human Resources Section to evaluate its operational functions in relation to its goals and the maintenance of security and order. Another benefit of the Human Resource Section is that it allows for a diversification of operations within the department. The Section is a ground for the generation and execution of ideas (MARKOWITZ, 2007). Moreover, there is a delegation of duties within the Human Resources Section. This delegation of duties offers a diversified approach in the implementation and execution of operational functions within the department.
On the other hand, the Human Resource Section can have certain cons. One of the significant cons of this section is that is subject to the orders from the administrative body. Therefore, the execution and the performance of duties are dependent on the orders from a given administrative figure within the department (MARKOWITZ, 2007). As such, it can be time-consuming and slightly ineffective in terms of the performing of the departmental functions.
The primal goals of the human resource division of this police department are to establish and maintain efficient records of the personnel, prepare and maintain the descriptions of the jobs, monitor and provide for the activities of background and recruitment, and establish and maintain efficient payroll systems for the personnel. Moreover, the Human Resource Division of the police department has functional and strategic responsibilities for multiple human resource disciplines including risk management, human resource development, workforce planning, labor relations, and policy formulation (Mignone, 2005). The Human Resource Division of the police department helps to ensure that the making of employment decisions follows strict compliance with the Federal and State regulations and laws, as well as the rules of the Civil Service.
The division of the human resources of the New York Police Department serves the police department in a variety of operational functions. Organizationally, the human resource division enhances the organizational performance in three functional levels. The first functional level is administrative. It involved dealing with the processing of work that is necessary to maintain a formal compliance and documentation. The second functional level is operational. This level provides the methods and processes of formal operation to accomplish the functions of promotions, hiring, and recruiting. The third functional level is strategic. This level consists of forecasting, policy development, evaluation, management effectiveness, organizational development and internal communication.
The human resources division of the NYPD focuses primarily on the human resource health, safety, recruiting and staffing, and planning, and analysis issues. Moreover, the division focuses on the coordination of outside resources and any human resource need deemed exclusive to the police department. The police department incorporates operational, administrative and strategic, operational functions in its full-service human resource capacity. The human resource division consists of various units.
The police personnel are the first unit. This unit has a distinct and permanent staff. This office coordinates and performs the safety of the department, the compensation programs and policies, all the recruiting efforts, all the internal processes of selection, the management of the human resource records and all the forms of the employee tracking and placement. The second unit is the behavioral sciences. This unit also has a permanent staff. It oversees various support services serving as the resources for the entire police department. In addition to the provision of assistance services of the employees, this unit also advises the senior staff and the management team of the police department on the trends within the police department and the policy issues.
Another unit of the human resource division is the background investigation. The unit has part-time and background investors that assist in the coordination of all the sworn hiring processes and conduct the background investigations on the police personnel, the sworn and the non-sworn. The payroll is another unit of the human resource division of the police department. This unit has its staff that ensures the tracking and entering of the daily rosters of the department, the overtime and the exceptions of the time card (Mignone, 2005). Moreover, the unit tracks the compensation of the secondary language, the new employees, all the separations and the processes of performance evaluations. Recruiting is also another unit of the human resource division in the NYPD. It manages the recruiting efforts of the police department in and out of the state.
Other essential elements of the human resource section of the New York Police Department include the assignments and transfers unit, the careers development unit, the civilian services unit and the employee relations and the advisory services unit. Others include the department security office and the safety and health coordination unit (Evans, 2011).
All the human resource sections under the human resource division of the New York Police Department aim to promote the operational functions within the department by catering for the issues that affect all the human personnel within the system. Moreover, these parts and units of human resource within the police department seek to resolve some of the issues that affect the department such as leadership problems, poor relations among the employees and issues of payment among others. Therefore, in order to resolve these issues, there has to be utmost transparency and accountability in the human resource units (Evans, 2011). Transparency will foster honesty in the operational functions starting from the leadership. With utmost honesty within the department, it is easy to come together in times of a crisis to find a solution. On the other hand, accountability promotes efficiency and effectiveness because individuals become responsible for all their actions. Moreover, it establishes good relations within the organizational and functional levels within the department.
References
Evans, C. (2011). New York police department. New York: Chelsea House Publishers.
Human Resources. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/training_nypd/human_res.shtml
MARKOWITZ, J. (2007). A Peer-Based Assistance Program for Officers With the New York City Police Department: Report of the Effects of Sept. 11, 2001Dowling FG, Moynihan G, Genet B, et al (Police Organization Providing Peer Assistance, New York) Am J Psychiatry 163:151–153, 2006§. Yearbook of Psychiatry and Applied Mental Health. doi:10.1016/S0084-3970(08)70380-3
Mignone, A. (2005). Arthur Niederhoffer's Study on Police Cynicism Among New York Police Department Recruits.
Swanson, C. R., Territo, L., & Taylor, R. W. (2005). Police administration: Structures, processes, and behavior (8th ed.). Princeton, NJ: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic.
